Handle Robot Reimagined for Logistics
Why Hacker News recommends it
Mostly cited as an example of robots doing warehouse and logistics work in automation discussions.
What it is
A short Boston Dynamics demo of Handle, a wheeled mobile manipulation robot that builds and unloads mixed-box pallets in a warehouse. It uses vision to find boxes and force control to place them against neighbors.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites freeflight · 2019-10 · on “Automation to replace every job under the sun, eventually”
Art is in the eye of the beholder. Just like it ain't only "mundane" work that is being replaced [0]. Imho right now most of humanity is still in denial about the consequences of these changes, just like with climate change. But in the long-term automation will leave us with a whole ton of "surplus humans" that will struggle to find any meaningful economic activity to engage in to finance their own survival. Right now a whole economy exists around these mundane jobs: All of the warehouse workers [1], delivery personnel, and a ton of others do their "mundane" jobs in the logistics chain, because that's what they can do. For many people, their driver's license is the only real qualification th
Cites HenryKissinger · 2021-11 · on “California port truckers ‘drowning’ in supply chain inefficiencies”
> "All we hear in the news is the lack of congestion on the waterside and we can confirm that, but we are drowning on the landside by long lines and staffing issues at the terminals,” Boston Dynamics has built droids capable of handling cargo.[1][2][3] [1] [this video] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] If humans are in short supply and these supply issues are causing companies to lose money, surely every business handling cargo from the ports will line up to buy some BD droids?
Cites jack_riminton · 2024-04 · on “An electric new era for Atlas”
Prediction: we'll have self-driving cars that can match our driving before we have legged robots that can match our stability, agility etc. Have you not seen Boston Dynamics tilting wheeled robots that work very well? [this video]